He said he feared “we’ll find out in 10 or 20 years” that we’ve made immoral tradeoffs similar to those he describes in his 2014 book “The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men.”

Addressing 260 people Wednesday night at UC San Diego’s Price Center, Lichtblau also saw parallels between the treatment of Holocaust victims and Syrian refugees.

“The two really have everything to do with each other,” said the former Los Angeles Times and New York Times reporter — now with CNN. “The most galling to me was the treatment of the survivors after the Holocaust.”

Despite “sepia images” of the 1945 liberation of death camps by U.S., Soviet and British troops, Jews and other Nazi victims didn’t emerge to joyful cheers like coal miners saved from a cave-in, he said.

With James Risen, Eric Lichtblau won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for revealing the NSA’s secret wiretapping program authorized by President Bush soon after 9/11. Photo by Ken StoneMany were kept in wretched conditions into 1946, said Lichtblau — whose talk was videotaped for airing at 8 p.m. June 26 on the UCSD Library channel and website.

U.S. Gen. George Patton, in fact, was a “raving anti-Semite” who referred to Jews in displaced-persons camps as the “greatest stinking mass of humanity” and “lower than animals.”

Lichtblau said President Harry Truman sent an emissary to check on stories of horrific conditions at the postwar camps, and a report came back: “We appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them” but without extermination.

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Patton later “got in hot water” for letting Nazi inmates run the displaced-person camps, Lichtblau said. The U.S. Seventh Army commander even handed three cigars to the Nazi scientist in charge of the V-2 rocket program.

In a 40-minute talk followed by a 35-minute Q&A session, Lichtblau recalled how 1,600 Nazi scientists and engineers were brought to Alabama, Ohio and even San Diego to jumpstart the space race amid the Cold War. It was called Operation Paperclip.

But less well-known was the fact that 40 percent of all visas went not to help the 7 million stateless victims of World War II but to the “captive” Baltic nations, whose populations were deemed of “good stock and breeding.”

Estelle Dunst of Hillcrest, wife of a Holocaust survivor, listens to a questioner at Eric Lichtblau talk. Photo by Ken StoneThrough that program, thousands of Nazis and Nazi collaborators were able to make a home in the United States.

Lichtblau’s interviews, research of national archives and FOIA requests also revealed efforts by eventual CIA Director Allen Dulles to deploy ex-Nazis as European spies against the Soviet Union.

The program was pretty much a failure — and even counterproductive, he said. Some spies were double agents working for the Soviets.

Lichtblau also exploded the government-fostered myth that German scientists and engineers weren’t “ardent Nazis.” (The Wernher von Brauns behind the moon shot eventually became celebrated by Disney TV shows.)

He documented that such recruits “gleefully and eagerly” executed their Nazi orders. It wasn’t until the late 1960s and 1970s that the government began seeking to denaturalize and deport Nazi war criminals.

During the question period, a reader of Lichtblau’s book noted how evil was hidden in the name of fighting communism.

“And I’m wondering: Do you see any dangers of our government doing similar things in the name of fighting terrorism?” asked a man who had flown down Monday from Marin County for the talk.

Lichtblau replied: “I fear that we’ll find out in 10 or 20 years that we have done that. Certainly we know that [for] the last 10-12 years Al Qaeda operatives have [been] developed as informants — with horrible, hideous pasts — in the Middle East mainly….

Leanne Howard of Santaluz asks whether ISIS terrorists can sneak into America as Nazis did as World War II refugees. Photo by Ken Stone“There certainly is this mind-set that, going back to Allen Dulles, that if you’re fighting the enemy — whether it’s the Soviets [in the] Cold War or the War on Terror — that sometimes you get your hands dirty, and we need to have some unsavory cohorts to win the war.”

But Leanne Howard of Santaluz, a frequent attender of UCSD talks, asked a “devil’s advocate” question.

Given that Nazis snuck in with Baltic state visas, “don’t you think at the same time it’s easy for ISIS people to sneak in among the refugees from Syria?”

Lichtblau called that “a legitimate concern” but pointed to “all sorts of vetting measures.”

“But the reality is that has hardly ever happened. … Almost none of those attacks were carried out by Syrian refugees,” he said, alluding to studies by George Washington and Fordham universities.

“Everyone worries about that. But some in Washington … fan the flames for political ends,” he said. “I think the answer is obvious. They’ve made that fear into much more than it is in reality.”

Lichtblau was introduced by famed lawyer Bill Lerach, who with his wife, Michelle, sponsored the talk at a UCSD Holocaust Living History Workshop.

Naziism was 80 years ago — and its events seemingly “stale and old,” said Lerach, whose lawsuits recovered $8 billion for Holocaust victims.

But “to me, recent events confirm it has lots of contemporary relevance. Our country today is ripped apart by a legal and political fight over whether refugees — victims of totalitarianism — can enter our country.”

Erich Lichtblau (left) met unrelated Eric Lichtblau in person for the first time after years of online correspondence. Photo by Ken StoneIn the context of “extreme vetting” and travel bans, he said, “Let’s remember: Our country refused to admit refugees attempting to flee Nazi totalitarianism before the war, condemning many of them to their deaths. And afterwards, we were ever so parsimonious in granting visas to the victims of the greatest human rights abuse in history. … The perpetrators got in. The victims were excluded.”

Lerach also noted how Lichtblau recently moved to CNN to head its investigative unit — “and God knows, he’s got a lot to do right now.”

But Eric Lichtblau of Washington took time to acknowledge Erich Lichtblau of Greenbrae — the long-journeyed Marin County questioner.

Erich, a lawyer for Pacific Gas & Electric who also works on prisoner-rights issues, had never met Eric the journalist until Wednesday night.

They first connected online when the West Coast Lichtblau accidentally got an “evite” to a party intended for the East Coast Lichtblau, Erich said. (He made sure the proper Lichtblau was notified.)

The lawyer had been following his double’s career starting with bylines in the Los Angeles Times, and eventually heard about “The Nazis Next Door” shortly after it came out.

“It sounded fascinating, so I bought a copy,” he said. “And I’ve since bought five more to give to friends. I was so blown away by the story.”

About 260 people attended Eric Lichtblau's talk in the Holocaust Living History Workshop series at UC San Diego. Photo by Ken Stonemore

Eric Lichtblau noted parallels between his 2014 book "The Nazis Next Door" and accounts of today's Syrian refugee crisis. Photo by Ken Stonemore

Eric Lichtblau said the liberation of Nazi death camps didn't lead to immediate freedom. Photo by Ken Stonemore

Eric Lichtblau displays a U.S. emissary's report to President Truman on horrific conditions at displaced-persons camps in postwar Europe. Photo by Ken Stonemore

Erich Lichtblau (left) met unrelated Eric Lichtblau in person for the first time after years of online correspondence. Photo by Ken Stonemore

Deborah Hertz, the Herman Wouk Chair in Modern Jewish Studies and UCSD history professor, spoke to the Price Center audience. Photo by Ken Stonemore

Eric Lichtblau said: "The lengths that [American officials] went to in the Cold War with the Nazis I found grotesque and, to be honest, completely ... unhelpful in the Cold War." Photo by Ken Stonemore

Eric Lichtblau said: "One wave of hate crimes seems to feed on the other. And certainly the last presidential campaign, most people would say — we saw some real ugly attacks on vulnerable people." Photo by Ken Stone more

Eric Lichtblau said: "Is hate and extremism on the rise? Certainly a rise in the U.S. after each terror attack. Inevitably, there's a rise in hate crimes against Muslims but also fans the flames against Jews, against transgenders are now a huge target." Photo by Ken Stonemore

Eric Lichtblau said: "So yeah, sometimes you have to get into bed with bad guys. But I hope that someone's not writing a book like this one in 10 or 20 years about guys we're using now in the War on Terror. " Photo by Ken Stonemore

With James Risen, Eric Lichtblau won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for breaking the story of the secret wiretapping program authorized by President Bush weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. Photo by Ken Stonemore

Eric Lichtblau said: "The Syrian refugee crisis has really been on my mind since I researched and wrote this book, since there are such haunting parallels between the two." Photo by Ken Stone more

Bill Lerach, hands together, was a co-sponsor of the Eric Lichtblau talk at UCSD's Price Center. Photo by Ken Stonemore

Estelle Dunst of Hillcrest, wife of a Holocaust survivor, listens to a questioner at Eric Lichtblau talk. Photo by Ken Stonemore

Leanne Howard of Santaluz asks whether ISIS terrorists can sneak into America as Nazis did as World War II refugees. Photo by Ken Stonemore